


I Hope I'm Not the Reason You Cry

by Catstaff



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/M, Harmony & Co's Lyric Llama
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-08
Updated: 2019-10-08
Packaged: 2020-11-27 20:17:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,057
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20954312
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Catstaff/pseuds/Catstaff
Summary: Harry looks back on the years he's known Hermione as he prepares to propose.





	I Hope I'm Not the Reason You Cry

**Author's Note:**

> This fic was inspired by the lyrics “Am I your one and only desire?, Am I the reason you breathe?, Or am I the reason you cry?” , from the song, Always by Saliva. I claim no ownership of it or Harry Potter, I only used it as inspiration. Done for the Harmony & Co. Lyric Llama on Facebook. Not quite what I'd originally intended, but Harry's musing took on a life of its own.

Harry paced nervously as he waited for Hermione to floo over for dinner. He wanted everything to be perfect for her this evening. Perfect the way so much of the last eight years hadn’t been. So much had been due to the war, of course, and plenty of fault lay with the Weasleys. Even so, he knew he’d been to blame for some of it as well. He paused by the window, looking out over the back garden at the swing he’d hung from the big oak tree, his eyes growing distant as he lost himself in memory.

First year, meeting a little girl with bushy hair helping another little boy look for his lost toad on the Hogwarts Express. Harry could tell that her pushy manner hid her nervousness, and truly appreciated when she mended his cracked glasses. Unfortunately, his own social awkwardness and nerves meant he never thanked her properly. Halloween started out even worse, as he didn’t stand up for her when Ron called her a nightmare. At least he managed to make up for that, by dragging Ron to find her when he realised she was missing from the feast and taking the lead in distracting the troll before it killed her. At the end of the year, when the three of them went through the third-floor traps, it was only Hermione’s intelligence that figured out the potions logic puzzle. Yet when he tried to praise her, she disparaged herself and praised him instead, and hugged him. He’d frozen up for a moment, never having been hugged before. He was just glad he un-froze quickly enough to return the hug before she decided she’d revolted him or something.

Second year, Hermione was one of the few who stood by him when he accidentally revealed himself to be a parselmouth and the majority of the school decided he must be the Heir of Slytherin and causing the petrifications. Even Ron had started to distance himself before she talked sense into him. But he’d overheard the ginger prat one morning, talking to Dean and Seamus when he thought Harry was still sleeping, saying that while he didn’t think Harry was the Heir of Slytherin, he couldn’t possibly be as good as he made himself out to be since everyone knew that parselmouths were always dark wizards. And then Hermione had been petrified too. Even petrified, though, she’d managed to help him, when he’d found that information on basilisks plus her note about the pipes crumpled in her rigid hand. When it was all over, of course, Ron tried to make himself out to be the hero of the hour. Harry just wanted to see Hermione back to normal. He’d been so proud that he saw her hug coming this time, when she’d been un-petrified, and stood ready for it with his arms open, even swinging her around a bit when she glomped onto him.

Third year, the best and worst in some ways. Worst, because he’d stayed angry with Hermione over the Firebolt for as long as he did. Really, he’d have forgiven her sooner if Ron hadn’t kept harping on the subject. Yes, she did go to McGonagall behind his back instead of talking to him first, but as Hagrid pointed out, she’d done it out of concern for his safety. Best, because he found the courage to side with her against Ron over whether Crookshanks ate Scabbers. Best, because during the usual end-of-year life-threatening adventure, it was he and Hermione working together. Best, because he discovered how nice it felt to have her holding him tightly as they rode Buckbeak. And best, because he worked up the courage to ask her to be his girlfriend before getting on the Express for the summer holidays, and she accepted.

Fourth year, the year everything changed. Ron the Jealous Prat emerged once again, convinced that Harry had cheated his way into the Tri-Wizard Tournament. Hermione stuck by his side, though, along with Neville, the quidditch team, and a handful of others (mostly Ravenclaws) with enough brains to understand just why he wanted nothing to do with the Tournament. He learned to study properly that year without Ron constantly interrupting him to play chess or go flying or just plain skive off, and his marks took a decided upward turn. Ron, of course, came skulking back with a half-arsed apology after he’d faced the dragon, but then tossed another wobbler when Harry wouldn’t help him find a date for the Yule Ball. (Harry had asked Hermione on their way out of class as soon as McGonagall announced the Ball.) Then the prat apparently decided that Harry wouldn’t help him find a date because he was too scared or shy or something, and two days before the Ball, informed him that since Hermione was a girl, he, Ron, would escort her to the Ball to save her from going alone, oh, and he’d also allow Harry to take his sister Ginny and trusted he’d be a gentleman. The tantrum that resulted when Harry and Hermione told him what they thought of his presumptiveness and that they already had dates quickly entered into Gryffindor Tower legend. At the Ball itself, Harry tried his best to make the evening a special one for Hermione. It almost worked, too, until a drunk Ron came over to berate them for ‘betraying’ him by dating each other when they both should have known he was supposed to be with Hermione and Harry with Ginny, and ended his rant by punching Harry and vomiting on Hermione as he tried to kiss her. The remainder of the year seemed quiet in comparison, although being used as Harry’s hostage for the second task without so much as a by-your-leave from the Tournament organisers greatly eroded Hermione’s trust in authority figures. Harry did hate being the cause of Hermione’s worry at the end of the third task; while it was Voldemort’s fault he’d been kidnapped, it was still him she worried over. She crept into the hospital wing after curfew, using his invisibility cloak, and made him promise that he’d not voluntarily leave her behind. Whatever would come, they would face it together.

And Hermione would keep that promise, even before fifth year started. She helped him look up laws in the books at Grimmauld Place, once he’d been brought there following the dementor incident, to use in his defense at his hearing. His hearing which turned into a full trial, thanks to Fudge and his pink toadlike lackey. But his wonderful girlfriend quickly found the relevant passages in the laws: that minors could use magic to defend their lives (a dementor attack was easily categorised as a threat to life), and that the Statute of Secrecy remained unbroken if a muggle who knew magic existed was the only witness to magic being performed. Dudley Dursley being Harry’s cousin and residing in the same dwelling, definitely qualified as an exception. The pink toad seemed especially furious when Harry quoted the laws exactly, but DMLE Head Madam Amelia Bones insisted on following precedent and cleared Harry of all charges. Back at Grimmauld Place, Hogwarts letters and booklists arrived, bringing prefect badges to Ron and Hermione. Harry congratulated his girlfriend on the achievement, but Hermione considered the circumstances and asked Harry to borrow Hedwig so she could return her badge, telling him that it was a combination of protest that he hadn’t been chosen, and a lack of desire to spend more time than absolutely necessary in Ron’s company. After the way the ginger acted for the best part of the prior year, Harry couldn’t blame her. The couple took one look at the DADA text for the year and asked Sirius to help them work up a self-study course with an eye to doing well on their OWLs at the end of the year. When they got to Hogwarts and discovered Umbridge, aka the pink toad, newly installed as DADA teacher, they knew they’d made the right choice. They spent the year keeping their heads down and studying hard for OWLs. Amazingly, they managed a quiet year, the ending only marred by reports of Voldemort himself being spotted after business hours in the Ministry itself, along with several of his Death Eaters, leaving Fudge with no option but to finally admit his return.

Then came sixth year, definitely the worst year because of the actions of the Weasleys. Motivated by the thought of the Potter fortune, Molly decided it was high time Harry gave up his “practice girlfriend” Hermione in favour of getting serious about her little Ginny. And since Ron barely passed his OWLs and so needed an intelligent girl as his future wife, Molly thought Hermione would do well for him. Unfortunately for Molly, Harry had taken Moody’s unofficial motto of “Constant Vigilance!” for his own, and had taken to checking his meals for potions, partly for practise and partly because he suspected Malfoy or one of the other Death Eater wannabes might try something rash to distinguish themselves in Voldemort’s eyes. He discovered the amortentia potion in his drink the first night at Grimmauld Place and much to Dumbledore’s dismay, pressed charges. He’d held Hermione close that night as she cried, rightly upset that anyone they’d considered friends would try to do that to them. Halfway through the school year, Dumbledore finally told Harry about the prophecy and Voldemort’s horcruxes, showing him the destroyed ring, while expressing his astonishment that Harry’s scar didn’t seem to bother him anymore. A livid Harry gritted his teeth while explaining that the scar had burst open during Voldemort’s resurrection at the end of his fourth year and had since healed to an almost imperceptible line. Dumbledore looked aghast and turned away, muttering something about the plan no longer working as he’d stay dead this time. A disgusted Harry took his leave and repeated the entire conversation to Hermione. Together they worked out that Harry may have been a horcrux, but that if he had been, Voldemort must have reabsorbed the soul shard at some point during his resurrection. They went over what and where the remaining horcruxes likely were and resolved to enlist Sirius and Remus for help and advice as Dumbledore had proven himself less than trustworthy.

The summer was spent preparing for war, there was no other way to put it. Death Eater attacks on muggleborn grew increasingly frequent, and Harry helped Hermione persuade her parents to spend a year or more abroad for their own safety. Rather than return to school, the young couple set about hunting down the horcruxes along with Sirius; Remus stayed behind at their request when they learned that his wife Tonks was pregnant. They found the locket and dealt with it quickly enough, and Sirius got them into the Lestrange vault in Gringotts to retrieve the cup based on his relationship to Bellatrix. The three found themselves hunted as the Ministry fell to Voldemort’s supporters, who also instituted Ministry rule over Hogwarts. Harry hated himself at times for making Hermione live as a fugitive, but she quietly pointed out that she’d be in a worse position if she’d stayed behind at Hogwarts, being Harry Potter’s muggleborn girlfriend. By Christmas, they had run out of ideas for any other hiding places and decided to sneak into Hogwarts and search there while most of the students were home for the holidays despite Dumbledore’s assurance that he’d looked and never found anything there. Harry was ready to kill the old man when they found the diadem in the Room of Requirement almost immediately, as they could have obtained it even before they’d left school the previous summer but for his certainty there was no horcrux hidden in the school. They’d barely destroyed it before Voldemort himself arrived with his Death Eaters, storming the castle to get at Harry. Sirius fell to Bellatrix during the fight but managed to take Nagini with him, blowing her head off with his final spell as he collapsed. Voldemort’s rage at his familiar’s death gave Harry his opening, and he put a permanent end to Voldemort’s reign with a cutting curse to the neck even as the reptilian man put Hermione under the cruciatus curse. Luckily for them both, the shock of Voldemort’s death resonated in the Death Eaters’ dark marks, causing them all to drop unconscious, as Harry was too concerned with Hermione’s well-being to defend himself had anyone tried to retaliate.

A good portion of Hogwarts had been destroyed in the fighting, so the school remained closed until the following school year. Harry and Hermione gladly returned for their final year so they could sit their NEWTs. The Ministry arrested all marked Death Eaters, but to Harry’s disgust, normal service quickly resumed with the wealthiest of them making ‘campaign contributions’ to anyone they felt would uphold the current laws giving extra rights to purebloods such as sparing them from being questioned under veritaserum without consent. Worse still, Susan Bones had warned him just before graduation that a new bill was coming before the Wizengamot in August, a bill designed to force marriages between purebloods and either halfbloods or muggleborns. With all the rights to personal property, earnings, and anything else one might think of passing to the pureblooded partner. Despite being a pureblood herself, Sue was appalled by the wording of the bill, and realised that it was designed to force Harry and Hermione apart now that they’d graduated Hogwarts – the only revenge the non-convicted Death Eaters could manage against The-Man-Who-Conquered without any of them actually taking the step of becoming the next Dark Lord or Lady.

Well, Harry wasn’t having it. That’s why he’d planned tonight to be perfect. The Grangers were still abroad, having joined Doctors Without Borders, and Harry had already been to Gringotts to make financial arrangements and keep the Ministry’s hands out of the Potter vaults. The candles were lit, the salads and wine were already on the table, and the lasagna and garlic bread keeping warm in the oven. All he needed was for Hermione to arrive.   
And with a whoosh of the floo, she appeared. “You’re going all out tonight, Harry, wow! Did I forget a special occasion or something?”

“Maybe I just want to spoil my beautiful girlfriend,” Harry countered. He walked over to give her a hug and kiss, then drew her to the table. “Come on and eat.” He kept watching her with a smile throughout the meal, just enjoying her company and knowing he likely wouldn’t be alive right now without her presence in his life.

Hermione blushed as he seated her, still amazed even after four years of dating that Harry thought she was beautiful. And then she froze as he remained on one knee by her chair, a ring box suddenly appearing in his hand. 

“I meant to wait until after dessert, but… Hermione Jean Granger, you’ve been my one and only since the day we met on the Hogwarts Express, even if I was too dumb to figure it out until almost three years later. If not for your love and support, I don’t know if I would be here today, and for that, I thank you. I can only hope that my love for you outweighs any periods of idiocy I may have experienced over time and that you’ll do me the honor of becoming my wife.”

“Harry, you mean so much to me I don’t know how to put it into words. Of course I’ll marry you! Even if you did make me cry now and then through the years, most times was because of what someone did to you, rather than what you did to me. I know I wouldn’t be alive without you. I love you.” She held out her hand with her fingers spread.

Harry slipped the ring onto the appropriate finger and gave her a soft kiss. “I hope you like it. I thought you might like a bit of history instead of a generic diamond, and I found this in the Potter vault. It’s what they called a dearest ring in Victorian times – both because a man gave it to the woman dearest to his heart, and because the initials of the stones spell out the word. Diamond, Emerald, Amethyst, Ruby, Emerald, Sapphire, Topaz. It originally belonged to my few-times-great-grandmother Dorea Potter.”

“Oh, Harry,” Hermione said, leaning in for another kiss. Then she giggled as his stomach growled. “I guess we can’t live on love alone?”  
He laughed as well. “I guess not. Let’s eat.” He stood up and brought the lasagna and garlic bread to the table, serving Hermione first and then himself. As they started to eat, he said, “Also, there’s a bit of bad news. We’re going to either need to be married quickly, or leave the country quickly, or both.” He explained the bill proposal that Susan Bones warned him about.

Hermione looked furious. “Those bigoted, hypocritical… ooh, I can’t even say it! The nerve! Why did we bother to get rid of Voldemort for them, if they’re going to let things like this pass? They’re just begging for another Dark Lord to spring up – and this one will probably be a muggleborn wanting revenge for the last few years!”

Harry nodded. “I know, love. And this time, I have no intention of being here to save them. I’ve already moved the bulk of the Potter wealth to Gringotts Switzerland so the Ministry can’t seize it. I thought we’d travel for a bit, perhaps visit with your parents wherever they might be posted at the moment, and then in six months or a year decide if we want to come back to Wizarding Britain or do something else. The only real question right now is, do we get married immediately or after seeing your parents?

Hermione blushed. “Immediately,” she whispered. “I don’t want to wait to be with you, Harry. But Madam Pomfrey had that class for the girls back in second year… well, let’s just say there are some good reasons for a witch to come pure to the marriage bed.”

Harry smiled. “If you’re willing to fly, we can be in Gretna Green tonight.”

“Let’s do it. I love you, Harry James Potter.”

“And I love you, Hermione Jean Granger.”


End file.
